John Ross, Cherokee chief and slaveholder (Library of Congress)
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While many Native American nations allowed white slaves to earn their freedom through intermarriage, the tribes also had strict laws forbidding any intermarriage between a Native and a black slave, often punishing those who married their slaves with banishment from the tribe. The Native slave-owners could also be horrifyingly brutal towards their black slaves. This is illustrated by the case of Lucy, a black slave burned alive for the murder of her native master. She had no part in the murder but was executed anyway at the request of the murdered warrior’s wife.
During the Civil War, the “Five Civilized Tribes” fought on both the Union and Confederate sides. After the war, the Treaties of 1866 freed the slaves. Even after that, blacks still faced discrimination in the Indian territories, with many tribes passing laws similar to the infamous “Black Codes” in the South. This often-overlooked part of American history takes on new significance in light of today’s debates over slavery reparations and monuments to those who owned slaves or fought to keep them.
Do the descendants of the “Five Civilized Tribes” owe reparations for slavery? Should monuments to their leaders be taken down? The institution of slavery was rightfully eradicated with the passage of the 13th Amendment. But any debate over how to deal with the legacy of this evil institution must remember that the phenomenon was much more complex than is often portrayed or remembered. (Read more.)
From Smithsonian:
Native Americans, she said, had themselves been enslaved, even before African-Americans, and the two groups “were enslaved for approximately 150 years in tandem.” It wasn’t until the mid 18th-century that the bondage of Native Americans began to wane as Africans were imported in greater and greater numbers. Increasingly, where white colonists viewed Africans as little more than mindless beasts of burden, they saw Native Americans as something more: “noble savages,” unrefined but courageous and fierce.
Perversely, Native American ownership of black slaves came about as a way for Native Americans to illustrate their societal sophistication to white settlers. “They were working hard to comply with government dictates that told native people that in order to be protected and secure in their land base, they had to prove their level of ‘civilization,’” Miles explained. (Read more.)
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